Frozen
by flashwitch
Summary: Character study of Steve Rogers. Steve does not like the cold. At all. In the same vein as Hands Free and High.


**So apparently this is going to be a thing. Now that I've started I can't stop churning them out! Hopefully will eventually have one for each Avenger. Follows from Hands Free and High,but can be read as a stand alone as both of them can be. **

* * *

All of these things...none of these things... some of these things might be true.

Steve Rogers doesn't like the cold.

* * *

When Steve is five, the house is always can't afford much in the way of heating. His mother makes him wear lots of layers, even to bed, and he still shivers constantly. He's only really warm when his mother wraps him up in a blanket on her lap and they drink hot chocolate wrapped around each other by the stove.

Warmth means family to him. It means love.

* * *

When Steve is ten he trips over his own feet and lands in the river. Bucky pulls him out, soaked to the bone and shivering, and they walk back to Steve's place in the dark. He feels frozen to the bone, it's the beginning of winter and there's an inch of snow on the ground. They'd been having a snowball fight, and he'd tried to doge and just went over. Bucky wraps his arm around him and when Steve tries to stop, to lie down, just for a minute, Bucky picks him up over his shoulder. When he opens his eyes, he's in bed, blankets piled on and Bucky lying beside him keeping him warm.

* * *

When Steve is fifteen he get's locked in the sports shed by some of the guys from his class. They were picking on some little kid, and he tried to interfere. He's only wearing his sports kit, shorts and a vest, and it's getting cold quick. Sports had been the last lesson of the day so no one's looking for him. He's stuck in there overnight, until they need the sport equipment again. His breathing is wheezy when they find him and his Dad freaks out. His mum had worried herself sick and she hugs him tight; her embrace warm and smelling of roses.

* * *

When Steve is 21 he gets into the army. Finally. His parents are dead, and he's dropped out of art school. He's cold all the time now. The training is long and hard and they have to do it in the rain and the mud and he never seems to get warm. The others won't stop hazing him, no matter what he does. The showers are one step away from ice, and the barracks are cold. He hates the barracks actually because the walls are thin and there's a constant draft. The blankets are thin and itchy and no matter how close he curls up under it, he shivers in his sleep.

* * *

When Steve is also 21 he strips off his shirt and hat and tie in a bunker in front of everyone. Then he climbs into a sterile metal box. The leather he's lying on is frigid on his skin. He closes his eyes.

Pain, searing him.

Ice water in his veins.

He thinks he might be screaming.

Frozen pins driving into him.

"Stop!" he hears Dr Erskine trying to halt the experiment, but suddenly he's flooded with warmth, almost too hot after the cold. He's burning.

"No! I can do this!"

Slowly the heat fades to a pleasant warmth and his whole body goes limp. He's shuddering and panting. It's over. It's beginning.

* * *

When Steve is 23, he's off on a mission with the Howling Commandos (he misses them). They walk through the rain and the mud saturates their clothes. Steve's feet are like blocks of ice. But when they sit together at their camp at night (no fire, they can't be seen) and huddle together for warmth, telling tall tales and singing old songs, Steve feels heat bloom in his chest.

They laugh. They smile. They talk.

The cold fades.

* * *

Bucky dies in the cold. They're up high and the wind is racing past them and there's snow around them on the mountains.

Bucky falls.

Bucky dies.

The world gets colder.

* * *

Steve tells people he doesn't remember anything after arranging the date with Peggy.

Steve lies.

He remembers the seeping cold and the slow fall under the ice. He remembers the snow biting at his chest as he tried to breathe under water.

He remembers... not drowning. Not dying. Something new. He remembers the entire absence of heat and a cold blue light.

* * *

When Steve wakes up, he's either 92 or 24. No one seems sure. He decides not to worry about it. The room he wakes in is warmer than the ice, colder than a home and he knows something is wrong before he even opens his eyes. He sits up and tries to pinpoint what it is. You know what happened next.

* * *

They keep talking about 'global warming' on the television but Steve frowns. To him 2012 is cold and sterile and empty. 1944 was warmer. He doesn't really feel warm until the team starts to gel. An almost painful heat in his chest. It's worse because the heat is pressed up against the block of ice his heart has become since Coulson died. He blames himself. The competing temperatures confuse him, especially during the fight. He forces the heat away, focussing on the cold. It's easier to concentrate on his shield, his allies, and his enemies with ice at his core.

* * *

He stays frozen for a long time after that. He can't let himself thaw. He keeps reminding himself of why. He visits Peggy's grave, and Bucky's (empty of a body) and he signs all of Coulson's cards. The blood makes them more precious in his eyes.

* * *

The ice finally starts to melt when Tony invites them all to live in the Tower. He isn't going to go to begin with. But then Tony does that thing where he makes his eyes big and liquid, and Clint says he's already moved his things in and Bruce has an apartment and a lab there. Even Natasha is living there.

And the apartment Tony has made him is perfect. Classic without being old fashioned, and clean straight lines everywhere. The walls are plain white, but the furniture and the furnishings are all in warm earthy shades. He explores a little and finds a set of paints in every shade and brushes.

"I thought you could do a mural," Tony says quietly, behind him. "I got normal art supplies too."

And yeah, Steve had found those, the easel set up in the study, the pastels on the desk. But this, it shows more insight than he thought Tony was capable of.

The ice cracks, just a little.

"Thanks Tony."

"No problem, Cap."

* * *

The ice melts completely after the first movie night. The one after they find out that Coulson was never really dead (and yeah, the old ice melts, but he gets a new icicle with Fury's name on it). They pile together on the sofa and it's like huddling for warmth with the Howling Commandos. They're bathed in the warm light of the Arc Reactor and they talk and laugh and sing old songs into the night.

He's warm.

* * *

Steve Rogers does not like being cold. Would you?


End file.
